WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats on Wednesday proposed allowing the federal government to borrow an additional $1.9 trillion to pay its bills, a record increase that would permit the national debt to reach $14.3 trillion.

The unpopular legislation is needed to allow the federal government to issue bonds to fund programs and prevent a first-time default on obligations. It promises to be a challenging debate for Democrats, who, as the party in power, hold the responsibility for passing the legislation.

It’s hardly the debate Democrats want or need in the wake of Sen.-elect Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts. Arguing over the debt limit provides a forum for Republicans to blame Democrats for rising deficits and spiraling debt, even though responsibility for the government’s financial straits can be shared by both political parties.

The measure came to the floor under rules requiring 60 votes to pass. That’s an unprecedented step that could mean that every Democrat, no matter how politically endangered, may have to vote for it next week before Brown takes office and Democrats lose their 60-vote majority.

Democratic leaders are also worried that Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who opposed the debt limit increase approved last month, will vote against the measure.

The record increase in the so-called debt limit is required because the budget deficit has spiraled out of control in the wake of a recession that cut tax revenues, the Wall Street bailout, and increased spending by the Democratic-controlled Congress. Last year’s deficit hit a phenomenal $1.4 trillion, and the current year’s deficit promises to be as high or higher.

Congress has never failed to increase the borrowing limit.

“We have gone to the restaurant. We have eaten the meal. Now the only question is whether we will pay the check,” said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. “We simply must do so.”

A White House policy statement said the increase “is critically important to make sure that financing of federal government operations can continue without interruption and that the creditworthiness of the United States is not called into question.”

Well, it looks like the old anti-Semite is drumming up bad vibes for Israel again. I wish he would just spend his retirement hammering nails and stay away from the news studios.

Israel is headed for a clash with main ally the United States over the issue of Jewish settlements, former US president Jimmy Carter said in an interview on Sunday.

Asked by the liberal Haaretz newspaper whether the Jewish state was looking at a “head-on collision” with the United States if it doesn’t comply with Washington’s demands, Carter said “Yes.”

The former president, who brokered the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979, said Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank were the biggest hurdle in the hobbled Middle East peace process, saying they were “illegal and (an) obstacle to peace.”

The administration of US President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on Israel to halt all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, which is viewed as one of the key obstacles in the stalled Middle East peace process.

Carter on Sunday made a rare visit to a settlement, saying he went to Neve Daniel “to make sure they (the settlers) understand my own attitude towards Israel, the Jewish population across the world and the Jewish settlements.”

He was speaking at the start of a meeting with Shaul Goldstein, the head of the regional council of Gush Etzion, a large settlement bloc south of Jerusalem that Israel hopes to keep in any future peace deal.

Goldstein briefed the 85-year-old former president on joint Israeli-Palestinian projects in the region and on the history of the Jewish community in the Gush Etzion before the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.

“This is our homeland but we recognise that there are other people living next to us,” Goldstein told Carter. “We believe in human rights and we suffer when they (Palestinians) suffer.”

Obama’s efforts to push forward the peace process has raised fears in Israel that Washington may ease its support of the Jewish state as it tries to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Carter is also due to visit the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Tuesday as part of a regional visit.

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 6 April 1816

This is quite an observation. Maybe there is hope for the mainstream media yet….slim hope, but hope none the less.

Opening today’s Washington Post, there are three editorials. The lead editorial is on Obama’s policies with respect to the automobile industry.

“the spectacle of creditors being stripped of their legal rights in favor of a labor union with which the president is politically aligned does little to attract private capital at a time when the government and many companies need these investors the most.”

The second editorial argues that the entitlement problem is serious and cannot wait. The third editorial defends the DCschool voucher program.

Since we know that the Obama Administration is centrist and pragmatic, the only inference to draw is that the Post has become a mouthpiece for the far right wing.

It is so obvious that the president and his staff think the American people are so stupid they can”t count to a billion! Okay, well maybe we don’t have time to count, but we do know the difference between a hundred million and the billions that Washington is committed to blowing every year. We’re not fooled and we’re definitely not impressed by the attempt.

The key line from Obama is that “none of these things alone are going to make a difference,” except, of course, that “they start setting a tone.” Obama is exactly right. They are not going to make a difference, and he has no intention to make real cuts… but… he does have EVERY INTENTION of “setting a tone” of making cuts. As long as the American people think he’s trying to cut spending, that’s all that really matters to him. Then, he can go right on with his tax and spend agenda, and Americans will actually feel good about it. That’s his plan, anyway. Incredible.

Thankfully, not everyone was buying into the rhetoric. At Monday’s White House press briefing, Spokesman Robert Gibbs was taken to task for touting how significant the $100 million in “cuts” were. One reporter called Gibbs on the fact that just a few weeks ago, Gibbs was noting that $8 billion in earmarks was small compared to the overall size of the spending bill.

WASHINGTON AP – A senior administration officials says President Barack Obama is ready to ask federal department and agency chiefs to find $100 million to cut from the budget when he holds his first formal Cabinet meeting.

The official previewed Topic A for Monday’s Cabinet meeting on grounds of anonymity because it will be a private session. He said Obama will be reminding Cabinet members that financially-pressed families are looking to the government to spend their money wisely.

The president’s first formal Cabinet meeting is being held just days after a series of “Tea Party” demonstrations across the country in which protesters challenged the administration over it’s massive spending. A cut of $100 million in a multitrillion-dollar federal budget likely will be criticized by Obama’s opponents as inadequate.

The issue discussed in the article below is illuminating in its exposure of the legacy of the leftist education system that we now subject our children to. In reading my daughter’s high school level American History textbook, you will find very little criticism of socialist systems of any kind. In fact, you don’t find socialism and some of the left’s most outspoken proponents linked at all. It is no wonder that we are seeing results like this.

Maybe the results would be different if socialism was defined as a totalitarian dictatorship whose economic model endeavors to create a two class system; members of the ruling class, who enjoy great economic rewards and a vast underclass who work for the state and provide the capital for the rulers to enjoy.

Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better.

Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better.

Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism. As for those who do not invest, 40% say capitalism is better while 25% prefer socialism.

There is a partisan gap as well. Republicans – by an 11-to-1 margin – favor capitalism. Democrats are much more closely divided: Just 39% say capitalism is better while 30% prefer socialism. As for those not affiliated with either major political party, 48% say capitalism is best, and 21% opt for socialism.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls.) Rasmussen Reports updates also available on Twitter.

The question posed by Rasmussen Reports did not define either capitalism or socialism

It is interesting to compare the new results to an earlier survey in which 70% of Americans prefer a free-market economy. The fact that a “free-market economy” attracts substantially more support than “capitalism” may suggest some skepticism about whether capitalism in the United States today relies on free markets.

Other survey data supports that notion. Rather than seeing large corporations as committed to free markets, two-out-of-three Americans believe that big government and big business often work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.

Fifteen percent (15%) of Americans say they prefer a government-managed economy, similar to the 20% support for socialism. Just 14% believe the federal government would do a better job running auto companies, and even fewer believe government would do a better job running financial firms.

Most Americans today hold views that can generally be defined as populist while only seven percent (7%) share the elitist views of the Political Class.